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But at this time, it was still the seventh year of Chongzhen, 1634 of the Gregorian calendar. Although Shah Jahan had conquered southern India, he was still sending troops to Afghanistan.

At this time, in the extremely luxurious palace in Delhi, Shah Jahan was sitting on the throne, and an old man with one arm was kneeling underneath. His voice sounded young, and he was talking to Shah Jahan.

"Honorable Great Khan, this is the situation. The cunning Mingren used despicable means to occupy the land of Dongwu. As long as the Great Khan can send troops to drive away Mingren, I am willing to dedicate Dongwu to the powerful Mughal Empire. I am willing to become a minister of the Great Khan!"

This man was the former King Dongwu Talung who was sent to Delhi by the Governor of Bengal. When he talked about Akito, his eyes were filled with hatred. When he finished speaking, he looked at Shah Jahan with hope again.

After hearing this, Shah Jahan stroked his mustache and did not speak for a while. To be honest, he also knew something about the Ming Empire. In the past, why did we not continue to fight against Dongwu after we captured Bengal? It was because Dongwu was a consolation envoy of the Ming Dynasty.

His ancestor, the former Timurid Empire, was an extremely powerful empire. All the famous nearby powerful countries were defeated and conquered. The territory of the empire was much larger than that of the Mughal Empire. The ancestor of Timur was also a great Khan with great talents and strategies. But even so, the Timur Empire at that time was forced to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty as a sign of surrender.

Of course, this was a shame for Timur's ancestors. Finally, when he was old, he detained the Ming envoys and led the army to fight, preparing for a decisive battle with the Ming Dynasty. But on the way to the expedition, he died of illness. Then, Shaharul, the second Great Khan, immediately paid tribute to Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty to show his surrender. After that, the Timur Empire no longer had the courage to express hostility to the Ming Dynasty.

Babur, the sixth grandson of Timur, led his troops south to establish the Mughal Empire when the country was in ruins. The once glorious Timurid Empire no longer exists, but the Ming Empire still stands in the rich east.

Now, although Shah Jahan feels that his empire is powerful, and although he still wants to expand the territory of his empire, he still lacks the confidence to compete with the Ming Dynasty for hegemony.

When King Talong saw Shah Jahan's expression, he immediately realized that Shah Jahan was afraid. Thinking about it, Shah Jahan and his ancestors have always been suppressed by the Ming Dynasty. It would be strange if they had no scruples.

Fortunately, King Talong has also considered this. Therefore, when he saw Shah Jahan meditating, he spoke again: "Honorable Khan, the Ming Dynasty has been in existence for nearly three hundred years. It has long been decayed and is no longer as strong as before! Otherwise, Dongwu would not be able to come from the Ming Dynasty. The country became independent and established itself as king."

"Honorable Great Khan, you don't know that before, when Dongwu's army invaded the territory of the Ming Dynasty, there was no sign of the Ming Dynasty sending a large army to conquer..."

After hearing what he said, Shah Jahan frowned, interrupted without hesitation, and asked him: "Huh? Didn't your country be destroyed by the Ming Dynasty? Why did you say this again?"

Shah Jahan's ministers nearby also shouted at him and threatened him that if he dared to deceive their Khan, he would be cut into pieces!

"Honorable Great Khan, I didn't say anything. This time the Ming Kingdom sent troops, more than ten years have passed since Dongwu attacked Ming Dynasty Yunnan. Think about it, if the Ming Kingdom was strong enough, why didn't they come then? The conquest of Dongwu has been delayed until now. Therefore, these two things are not related." King Talong quickly explained.

Seeing that Shah Jahan was still frowning, he quickly added: "To be honest with the Khan, Dongwu is closer to the Ming Kingdom, so he knows more news. The Ming Kingdom is no longer as powerful as before. In the Ming Kingdom In the northeast of the country, a Jurchen tribe rose up, defeating the Ming Kingdom and losing their entire Liaodong. Liaodong was several times bigger than Dongwu, and the Jurchen tribe's military strength directly threatened the capital of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Kingdom , it won’t work!”

Upon hearing this, Shah Jahan's eyes couldn't help but light up. He believed that his king would not dare to tell lies about this kind of thing. However, he was not that easy to fool, so he immediately asked: "If the Ming Dynasty is as unbearable as you said, then why did the Ming Dynasty still have the energy to conquer your Dongwu? It also gave it to a vassal king and established a vassal state. ?”

His ministers were also staring at him, King Long, to see how he would explain?

Of course King Talong had thought about this question, so he immediately replied without any hesitation: "Honorable Khan, this is the cunning of the Ming Dynasty. They felt that the domestic vassals were dragging down the strength of their empire, so they thought Then banish all their vassal kings from abroad."

At this point, he paused and then explained: "Honorable Great Khan, think about it, all the vassal kings in the Ming Dynasty are hereditary. It has been nearly three hundred years. How many vassal kings will there be in their country? Ming Dynasty There were too many clans to count, and they could not even afford the salaries of these clans. Therefore, they believed that as long as they sealed off all the vassal kings and no longer hindered the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Kingdom would recover and be able to Defeat the Jurchens in the north!"

One thing was also clear to Shah Jahan. On their side, the royal families would fight against each other, but on the Ming side, except for one person who could be the emperor, the others were all vassals and would not attack each other. If you calculate it this way, in nearly three hundred years, there will indeed be a lot of vassal kings.

King Talong struck while the iron was hot and continued: "In order to achieve their goals, the Ming Dynasty focused on my Dongwu. That's why I said that the Ming Dynasty's attack on Dongwu had nothing to do with Dongwu's previous invasion of Yunnan. . This time, it was related to whether the Ming Dynasty could restore its national strength. Therefore, they used all their human and financial resources, as well as conspiracy and tricks, to take Dongwu away..."

While he was talking, he was also observing Shah Jahan and his ministers. He felt that he had made it clear that the Ming Kingdom was no longer powerful, but these Mughal Empire monarchs and ministers still seemed to have some scruples. He probably guessed that these arguments would still be difficult to convince these Turkic Mongols.

Therefore, King Thalong did not wait for Shah Jahan to express his position, and continued: "Honorable Great Khan, the Ming Dynasty has already tasted the sweetness of Dongwu, so it has tried its best to implement their policy of enfeoffing the vassal king. . I heard that their next step is to continue to seal the vassal king out, and his vassal state is in Bengal!"

"What?" When Shah Jahan heard this, he was suddenly shocked. He leaned forward slightly and shouted sternly, "What did you say?"

"Honorable Great Khan, the Ming Dynasty has changed Dongwu to the Tang Dynasty. Further south is the sea, so there are only two ways to go east and west." King Talong analyzed seriously, "There are so many vassals in the Ming Dynasty. King, even if you keep going east to enfeoff, you won’t be able to enfeoff several vassal kings. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty can only continue to enfeoff to the west. Next door to Dongwu is Bengal, the situation is that simple!"

His ability to leave his name in the original history is certainly due to his ability. Just from the Dongwu incident, we can roughly analyze the Ming Dynasty's strategy. I have to say that I have a good vision!

At the same time, he knew how to persuade Shah Jahan. After his analysis, as seen before him, Shah Jahan could not sit still. He stood up and walked back and forth in front of the throne, frowning and thinking.

And his ministers were all thinking about this matter, and for a while, no one spoke.

Perhaps because he couldn't stand the atmosphere, one of the generals turned towards Shah Jahan and shouted loudly: "Great Khan, instead of waiting for the Ming army to strike first, it is better for us to strike first!"

A civil official on the other side heard this and quickly said: "Great Khan, you must not do it. This is just a one-sided statement from his king. If the Ming Dynasty does not have this intention, and we attack the Ming Dynasty first, wouldn't we have to do it?" It’s inappropriate to fight on both sides!”

"Yes, Khan, what if the Ming Dynasty is still strong? If we take the initiative to provoke the Ming Dynasty, even if the Ming Dynasty did not originally want to come to the west, it will come to the west!" Another civil servant also looked worried. Said.

Shah Jahan's generals also insisted on their opinions and retorted: "So what if the Ming Dynasty is strong? How many troops can they send if they are so far away from us? The Portuguese are powerful, right? They were defeated by us in Bengal. !"

At this time, the Portuguese power was actually in decline.

In the original history, the Portuguese began to colonize the world as early as the fifteenth century, and Spain followed closely behind, competing with the Portuguese for colonies and succeeding in many places. For example, many colonies in Southeast Asia were robbed by the Spaniards.

At this point in time, the Dutch rose strongly again, and after joining forces with Britain to defeat the Spanish Armada, they began to seize colonies around the world. This is also the reason why Hongyi, who is a high-ranking member of the Ming Dynasty, always regards Fo Langji as his enemy.

The butterfly effect caused by Emperor Chongzhen's time travel has currently only affected some areas around the Ming Dynasty. The global colonial situation has generally remained unchanged. At this time, the Dutch colonial power was the strongest.

The Portuguese are really in trouble. They were expelled by King Dongwu before, and their governor was nailed to a wooden frame by King Dongwu's order. In Bengal, the Portuguese were also expelled by the Mughal Empire. It was also because everything was extremely unfavorable that Portugal decided to take a gamble on Annan.

But there is one thing, whether it is the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Dutch who are at their peak, or the British who are beginning to show their edge at this time, in the eyes of Easterners, they are all Westerners. The people of the Mughal Empire regarded them as powerful, and their ability to drive away the Western barbarians was a reflection of their strength.

Shah Jahan listened to their argument, then stood up and turned to look at his courtiers. He did not speak for a while, obviously he was also thinking.

When King Talong saw it, he quickly said: "The Great Khan can send someone to ask. In fact, the Ming army is not powerful at all. It was the chieftain army that defeated Dongwu. The Shizhu chieftain army in Sichuan is known as the Baigan Army. As for the elite chieftains, the Ming army is no better than the Baigan Army. But this army was also transferred back to Yunnan last year. I heard that there was another chieftain rebellion in Yunnan. The Ming Dynasty was powerless to deal with the rebellion. I can rely on this army of chieftains."

At this point, he raised his voice and seemed to remind him sincerely: "Honorable Great Khan, the civil strife in the Ming Dynasty continues. Now is the opportunity. Strike first to gain strength, and strike later to suffer disaster. If the civil strife is suppressed by the Ming Kingdom, , if we regroup the army and fight, it will be difficult!"

He patted his chest with his remaining hand and said: "As long as the Great Khan sends troops to attack Dongwu, and my people are willing to respond internally, they will use the same method as the Ming Dynasty to rob Dongwu and dedicate Dongwu to the noble Khan. Then , I am willing to guard Dongwu for the Great Khan. If the Ming Dynasty comes to fight again, unless I die in battle, I will never bother the Mughal Empire."

After hearing these words, Shah Jahan was still a little hesitant. His ministers were also divided into two groups: those who fought and those who did not. After a quarrel, Shah Jahan finally decided to let King Talong live in Delhi temporarily, and he sent people to the east to find out whether what King Talong said was true. of!

At the same time, Emperor Chongzhen, who was incognito and went south, naturally could not know about the Mughal Empire in India. At this time, he was sitting on the boat, listening to Concubine Tian beside him introducing the scenery and some cultural allusions along the way to the curious maids.

After listening for a while, he felt a little bored. It was around this time last year that I went south incognito, and the scenery I saw was naturally similar. It was fresh for a while at that time, but now that I look at it, I am less interested.

So Emperor Chongzhen entered the chat group to read the news, and a private message caught his attention.

The news came from Yang Sichang, the governor of Baotou, saying that the road would be better. He received an envoy from Oqirtu Khan in western Mongolia, saying that he wanted to purchase more Ming Dynasty flintlock guns, and the quantity was a bit large. This time, the price given was no longer just cattle and sheep, but also a lot of gold, silver and furs. After Yang Sichang inquired, he said that Oqirtu Khan had won several battles, and even defeated an army of Tsarist Russia returning to the west, and intercepted a lot of loot.

Others may not know it, but Emperor Chongzhen knew that this army returning from Tsarist Russia probably happened to encounter the army of Oqiltu Khan after plundering a large amount of supplies from Siberia. Haha, for such a coincidence, Tsarist Russia is quite unlucky!

Thinking of Siberia, he thought of Li Zicheng who had set out a year ago. Now the Ming Dynasty's army has basically controlled the eastern Siberia and has driven the forces of Tsarist Russia to the west. If the Ming Dynasty wanted to continue to control Siberia, it must establish strongholds and declare sovereignty like Tsarist Russia. The best way is to choose a good location to build a city, and then develop a train as soon as possible. Even if you run a train once a month to provide transportation, that is still good.

As for the steam train, although the Bingzhan Bureau is already developing it. The locomotive basically has no big problems. The key is the steel rails, or rails, necessary for trains. Anyway, no matter which rail it is, it requires a lot of steel. As for tracks made of other materials, although the initial cost will be lower, the maintenance cost is too high, which is very unrealistic.